


Two against one

by Bananas45



Category: B: The Beginning (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Bliss, Jealousy, M/M, Mind Games, Office Party, Painfully awkward Eric, but mellow angst, for about 5 seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 07:35:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15903780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananas45/pseuds/Bananas45
Summary: So much for strike before struck. So much for getting out while it was safe. Eric was an idiot.Keith just always manages to have all the aces when he’s not even playing the game.





	Two against one

**Author's Note:**

> This became really intense - I was just going to write some p0rn and then suddenly I had all these feelings about these two. This is really domestic compared to my usual stuff so i'm actually a little nervous.  
> I got waaaay to into it. i think I may write for them again. I really like this strange triangle. 
> 
> There is a lot of mentions of drinking coffee in this...Probably too many. I think how a man takes his coffee is deeply reflective of their personality.  
> Quote me on that.

He has the balls to say it one rainy morning in March. 

“We really should stop this”  
He’s sat at the table - his table, really, it’s not Eric’s, it’s not theirs - the air, wet with tension or condensation or both feels a little suffocating. Eric crosses his legs and stares at Gilbert, who’s hand, balancing on the top of the french press, stills as he turns. He looks surprised, actually surprised, not angry or disappointed, not upset or confused. Just surprised. Like someone told him a fact he didn’t know.  
“You’re unhappy?” He asks, taking to mugs from the top of his shelve - those posh glass mugs that you see in christmas ads, that Eric doesn’t have because all his mugs are mismatched presents from family he should make more of an effort to see. The rain patters on the window, makes the flat much colder than it actually is or maybe it’s Gilbert’s eyes.  
“I’m not unhappy” Eric says, as though it’s a stupid idea, dismissive in his tone. Gilbert rolls the sleeves up on the dark blue cashmere jumper he’s in - fuck everything about him is perfect, sickeningly so. It’s uncomfortable actually - and leans against the kitchen bunker, head cocked.  
“Guilty then?” Gilbert’s smile becomes playful as he pours the coffee, steam curling around him in the most sultry way, like even the steam can’t quite keep its hands of him.  
“Fuck, no” Eric shakes his head. “I’m not guilty”  
But he is. He is guilty. He’d been guilty months ago, when this started and he should have stopped. Now all he’s doing is taking advantage. Gilbert sighs and closes his eyes for a moment. His phone buzzes and Gilbert checks it for a moment before sliding it back into his pocket, focuses on Eric. It makes him oddly proud, there was a time, not long ago, where Gilbert wouldn’t have cared this much.  
“Too domestic for you, Toga?”  
The toast springs on cue and Eric almost gets up to help as he watches Gilbert pour milk into his cup - milk he only keeps in the fridge for Eric, he doesn’t take milk- taking out the toast with the other hand. It is too domestic. They’ve gotten painfully used to each other in a way neither ever expected. In a way that makes Eric uncomfortable, knowledge, deep - seated, that he’ll eventually be the one to come out of this worse lingers in the back of his mind like a virus. Keith haunts everything they do and ghosts can be so awfully intrusive.  
But answering yes to that question would be the coldest thing Eric had ever done, so he wouldn’t. Not when Gilbert slides into the seat opposite him with a mug and a plate of toast.  
“Thank you” He murmurs and Gilbert leans on his wrist as he balances his cup in the other hand.  
“Then what?” Gilbert sounds inquisitive, sliding a palm through his hair so the ends don’t tickle his forehead.  
“I just can’t, Gilbert” Eric says.  
The rain patters against the window, louder now. The grey of the morning making Gilbert look sickly pale.  
His phone buzzes again and then again and then once more.  
“You should get that” Eric mutters. 

 

Jealousy did this to him, if you were wondering. 

 

He can’t place when he started to find Gilbert attractive but he can place when he realised it. It had been a conversation he eavesdropped between him and Keith. Keith in his first week in archives and Gilbert still quietly seething over the decision, the two of them had bumped into each other in a corridor completely by accident while Eric had been tracking Gilbert down for a report that was two days late. He’d paused out of decency, to let them finish.  
“Ehck, It’s fine” Keith was saying, leant against the wall, gaze down and glasses tucked into his shirt, shoe scuffing the ground, arms crossed as he sighed. A casual, lazy elegance about him that Eric envied terribly.  
Gilbert’s eyebrow had quirked a little but his mouth had been down turned.  
“I’m just-” Gilbert had taken a defeated sigh, arms falling to his side in a aggravated way that Eric hadn’t really seen before.  
“Yeah I know” Keith says it with a softness, a tone that Eric heard rarely. “You miss me terribly, I get it”  
Gilbert rolled his eyes, biting his lip to stop the smile that pulled at his mouth.  
“No” He shook his head and then looked up. His smile had been vibrant, unnatural in its openness on a face like Gilbert’s and Keith, Keith didn’t even look pleased - this side of Gilbert, all school-girlishly open with his emotions - was a thing Keith Flick took for granted. “Well” Gilbert added. “Maybe a little”  
That made Eric angry too.  
The two of them laugh, a little awkward and a little stilted as Keith uncrosses his arm and stands straighter, stretching out.  
Eric watches. Both them are ethereal in different ways, both of them are horribly detached from the humdrum of reality, lost in eachother in a way that is uniquely them, lost in eachother but desperate to find a way out. It’s probably quite unhealthy, Eric thinks. Doesn’t stop him craving it.  
“I’ll, um” Keith swallows. “I’ll probably see you around-”  
“No, no” Gilbert waves a hand, talks over him with a flash of an anxious smile - fuck that’s attractive. “Off course you will”  
“Okay then” Keith laughs, staring at Gilbert, tongue on his teeth.  
“Okay” Gilbert smiles back, wider now and shoves his hands into his lab coat.  
“Stay safe, Ross. Watch your lungs and all that” Keith says, breaths out a sigh that seems to deflate him and walks away.  
Gilbert watches him go, entranced, eyes demure and smile content.  
“Oh! Gilbert” Eric rounds the corner like he’s just arrived, hates himself for being to much of a coward to even say hello to Keith but maybe a little part of him wants to bathe in the afterglow of whatever mood Keith created for Gilbert. “I was looking for you” But his voice is too clipped and his shoes are too shiny, his cuffs too clean and his ankles covered by thick socks his aunt bought him five years ago. “It’s the report on for the body we found, I need it if we’re to press ch-”  
Gilbert’s hand extends razor sharp, gaze not even falling on Eric and jaw clenched, like Eric is that kindergarten child who admits to eating all the crayons.  
Between two fingers is a folder, bound and signed in Gilbert’s overly ornate handwriting.  
Gilbert doesn’t say two words to him. 

 

And that makes him fall in love? Yeah, Eric is convinced those two have ruined him.  
At one time that really should have been a warning sign.  
It’s a romantic desperation, bohemian ideals - a thing Eric never thought he’d say in regards to himself - that makes him pursue Gilbert after that. He wants to be part of their world; over-emotional mind games that show no emotion. He wants everything they could throw at him. Even if it’ll ruin him. 

But then again, it wasn’t really Eric who made the first move.

 

The office Christmas party is one of those things Eric hates but can’t quite step back from. Probably because he’s a killjoy control freak who puts everything into a spreadsheet before he can help himself.  
It’s a bar, a local one that everyone loves - Eric knows because he got them to do an pole, as well as setting up the secret santa and ordering the office christmas tree (he still adamantly hates Christmas though).  
The thing is, they go for dinner beforehand by department - not that it’s new, they do that every year, it’s a nice team building exercise - and he hears on the grape vine, pathetically, that archives are going round to Keith’s.  
Why it makes him this irrationally angry though, he has no idea.  
Oh no wait. He remembers. Vicious and petty jealousy.  
He wonders vaguely if Gilbert knows but he’s off to some posh restaurant with his team. He probably wouldn’t care, Gilbert always comes across detached. Eric doubts envy gets to him this much. It ruins some sick and childish dream of Eric’s that the three of them could go out for dinner beforehand but they’re in different departments, Eric is too busy to see Gilbert day to day far less Keith.  
The bar isn’t as hoaching as Eric would have expected and a girl from admin dutifully hands out presents from secret santa as they gather round the bar stool she put them on. He sees Gilbert talking to someone, hand gesticulating vaguely as he holds his beer glass. He smiles when someone hands him a parcel wrapped present but doesn’t open it, just lays it down and murmurs something. Eric can practically read his lips.  
‘What was I saying?’  
It’s a girl from IT, an interning brunette who gazes at Gilbert behind thick rimmed spectacles and sucks on a bright pink cocktail, small even in her six inch heels, pulling her dress down and giggling at everything the man says.  
Eric ignores them. Hates that it makes him blush with inadequacy. Gilbert has moved on. Gilbert doesn’t wholly rely on Keith for his social circle. He gets a present thrust into his hands by Boris who smacks his back.  
“Enjoy yourself!” He laughs - bellows - into Eric’s ear.  
“Open it!” Kaela says, leant against the bar with a wine glass she’s marred with her lipstick.  
So Eric does, if only to keep conversation going and to avoid haplessly staring at Gilbert.  
And the worst part?  
It’s really thoughtful. A detective novel he’d off-handedly said he was meaning to read, first edition and signed. His favourite chocolate - just a little too dark for most people's taste and a inch too expensive to buy all the time - a little note attached  
‘Have a good christmas! Hope you enjoy, though frankly it’s quite depressing’  
Signed of ‘Secret Santa’  
it’s surprisingly heart warming. In fact it’s almost perfect.  
Kaela takes the book out his hand. “Oh my god this novel is trash” 

He catches Gilbert buying a drink an hour or so later, once the music is louder and the people have matched it. He’s in a really nice suit, a thing he doesn’t wear often and the buttons cut a little too low on him, the fit just an inch too tight to be anything other than intentionally attractive. Eric hadn’t even bothered to change his tie. Approaching him feels harder than asking his crush to dance with him at prom.  
“Where’s your victim?” Eric asks, ordering himself another pint. Gilbert blinks, smiling a confused half smile.  
“Excuse me?”  
“Your girl- that girl” Eric stumbles over the words, like he always does when he catches Gilbert’s full attention. “You were with” he clears his throat. “Where’d she go?”  
“Home I think” Gilbert says, frowning a little. “How’d you know I talked to her?” He tilts his head. “You’re not stalking me I hope”  
Eric chuckles. “No, no...”  
“Did you like your present?” Gilbert hands over a note and refuses the change, balances the glass in his slender fingers and puts a hand in his suit pocket.  
Eric steps closer, if only to hear over the music, not to just catch the expense in Gilbert’s cologne.  
“Yes” Eric says and then using all his detective skills leans closer. “Wait”  
Gilbert smirks into his next sip, eyes closing. His eyebrow quirks as he stares at out at the rest of the bar.  
“Wait?”  
“Do you know who it was?” Eric asks, he squares up a bit, smiles and takes a gulp for courage.  
“Maybe” Gilbert shrugs, smile becoming wider, uncontainable.  
Eric considers for a moment, a moment longer and then the world stops, the music seems to rise to some kind of crescendo in the background as he places the pieces together - that ability to just remember the little things in a way that is so perfectly endearing. Eric can visualise it now, half mentioning his favourite chocolate and it registering, a throw away comment about a book, caught in the air when the rest of the sentence is lost. He can imagine the emphasis, the apology in the present, the meaning endowed in it that the man himself couldn’t just say - 

“It was Keith” He breathes out “Wasn’t it?” His heart thunders, his chest tingles, head rings.  
Gilbert snorts and shakes his head into his glass, closes his eyes and frowns, even if he still forces a smile.  
“No” He sighs. “It was me” 

Oh 

Well now Eric feels awful but then again this always seems to happen. He always manages to find a way to make everything awkward with Gilbert.  
“Oh fuck” Eric laughs. “How’d you know I liked-”  
“You told me -” Gilbert shakes his head and holds up a finger. “Actually, I think you told Keith. I was there though” He smiles and gives Eric a knowing look. “Keith thinks very little of anything that gets a TV adaptation” Gilbert shrugs and purses his lips. “I think it’s a good series”  
“I-I read the first few” Eric sighs and Gilbert finally looks at him. “I thought- I thought they were pretty good. I really...Well I’m really uncultured” He laughs nervously.  
Gilbert shakes his head as he takes another long sip. “You’re not” He winces. “They’re airport novels though” He laughs.  
Eric laughs too - his mother use to say that. “Yeah they really are”  
“But I hate that actor who plays him in the TV series-”  
“What’s his name” Eric snaps his fingers.  
Gilbert shrugs “I don’t know...It’s just not at all how I imagined-”  
“Yeah!” Eric says. “I think it’s even said he’s-”  
“He’s not that attractive” Gilbert finishes, rolling his eyes.  
“And now he has like a seven pack-”  
“It’s so wrong”  
There is a pause. A lull as they both take a sip of there drinks.  
“What about the forensics girl?” Eric asks, swings a little from one foot to the other as he realises this is first time he’s had a full length conversation with Gilbert, maybe, ever.  
Gilbert groans. “Oh, who does autopsies in her nine inch heels and too tight lab coat? Her job changes week to week...I think she’s meant to be a coroner but-”  
“You don’t wear nine inch heels” Eric laughs and takes a sideways glance at Gilbert. “Do you think they’ll end up together?”  
Gilbert considers for a moment and watching Gilbert consider a question about a trashy TV adaptations of a trashier novel Eric thought would be much to far above Gilbert’s taste is actually intoxicating.  
“I don’t think so” Gilbert says.  
“Why?” Eric asks.  
“It’s too obvious” Gilbert says. “And besides...they just...I just don’t think they work” He swirls his beer.  
Suddenly the conversation feels heavy. Loaded. Eric realises all to late he’s walked into one of Gilbert’s minefields.  
“I think she loves him” Eric says. “At least that’s how it feels written”  
Gilbert shrugs, inclines his head towards the book he’s still carrying. “She dies in this one”  
Eric stares for a moment and then blinks.  
“What the fuck, Ross!” He shouts and bats Gilbert’s arm. “Just ruin the whole book for me!”  
Gilbert chuckles and then groans, clicks his tongue and looks over himself. “You’ve spilt my drink, Toga”  
“Oh... sorry” Eric says, suddenly hot with embarrassment that he’d even done that, even engaging Gilbert now feels like a mistake, given how is reputation with Keith seems to hang awkwardly in the balance - christ he should stop drinking.  
Gilbert throws him a look, almost, almost, sultry. “Well, You’ll have to buy me one now.”  
Eric can’t say no to that.  
They spent the night together, alone in a corner and only at eleven does Eric have the sense of mind to ask.  
“Where’s Keith?”  
Gilbert raises his eyebrows. “He’s ill, I think and tidying up-”  
“Did you know he had archives round?” Eric doesn’t mean to sound so conspiratorial.  
“Archives probably invited themselves” Gilbert says, surprisingly reassuringly and Eric sees through Gilbert’s smile. “Keith just can’t say no”  
‘Don’t worry, Toga, he’ll have missed us’  
“Are you not” Eric stops himself but the alcohol makes him continue. “Upset...Upset he didn’t invite us, You know?”  
Gilbert frowns “Well for one, I’m not in Archives and-” Gilbert sighs hard, buries both hands in his hair and then places them flat on the table and seems to consider what to say next “Look. Keith doesn’t think anything he does could ever be construed as bad because he doesn’t find anything offensive. He blanked me for two years in University and then turned up outside my door like nothing had happened because in his eyes, nothing had... He just doesn’t think like that”  
It’s another bullet, another horrible realisation that he really isn’t built to handle Keith Flick.  
“He’s not angry at you, Eric” Gilbert says. “He just doesn’t care”  
Somehow that hurts more.  
“Also” Gilbert says, like he’s noticed. “I hate that flat of his. So I don’t mind at all. It’s so cold and damp and slightly gross”  
Eric chuckles. “I know what you mean”  
Gilbert looks down, his eyes suddenly filled with an odd viciousness, then with pure rage and then,within a blink, it’s gone.  
“A word of advice, Eric” Gilbert puts a hand over his, pale and slender. “Don’t dwell on anything Keith says or does. It’ll send you mad” 

How they got from that conversation to Gilbert’s place. Eric can’t quite recall.  
But slamming Gilbert against the wall as he fumbles with his keys feels all too right or maybe it’s the booze.  
“Oh my god, Toga.” Gilbert mutters as he tilts his head back from Eric’s kisses, down and across his collar. “You’re insatiable” He winces as he pulls the keys on the chain apart. 

Gilbert’s surprisingly submissive but then again, everything about Gilbert is surprising and ever changing as though he’s waiting on your mood to set his own.  
It’s quite odd.  
His sheets smell a little of Keith he realises as he pushes Gilbert onto them but bringing it up now would probably, really ruin the mood. Or would it? Gilbert’s weird enough that it might not.  
He’s incredibly pale, Eric notes, as he trails hands down him, carves patterns of his own into the paper and wants them to last as long as it takes for Keith to see.  
Gilbert cries out when he bites his thigh and kicks out a little, enough to knock Eric’s glasses of his face.  
“Fuck-” Gilbert gasps. “You-you’re better at this than I thought you’d be”  
That’s so classically Gilbert. A backhanded compliment that should leave you cold but somehow leaves you scorching.  
Just before he fucks into him, arm braced on the head board as he stares down at Gilbert underneath him, hair splayed and eyes lust filled, breath shallow and arm laying just on the pillow with what could be desperately affected boredom, Gilbert goes  
“You can pretend I’m him” With a serpentine grin and a knowing look in his eye as he hooks a leg around Eric’s back. “If you’d like”  
It pisses Eric off as much as it turns him on and he fucks Gilbert at a punishing pace, until he’s tugging so hard on those blonde strands Gilbert has to beg him to slow down.  
“Who’d have known-” Gilbert whispers, victory in his voice as he moans like a whore, whole body trembling violently. “Y-you were so-so rough-”  
“Shut up, Gilbert” Eric snarls and pulls Gilbert’s hair hard enough that the man’s body has to arch uncomfortably underneath him, neck craned and toes curled. Gilbert grins even when Eric bites his neck hard enough to draw blood. 

He feels guilty afterwards, when he adjusts his glasses back on and lies, chest heaving and sheets pulled to his chin as Gilbert sits up, fingers gingerly poking at the fresh bruises on his neck and lighting up a cigarette one handed.  
“Wow...” Gilbert says, voice muffled as he flicks the lighter off and takes a drag in the afterglow. “That was a surprise” He exhales and the smoke curls around him as he tilts his head back lazily. “Not a bad one obviously” He smirks and waves the smoke into the darkness of the bedroom.  
Eric begins to feel just a little bit used, just a little bit sick, so he stays silent. Surprised at himself at how harsh he was, how years of pent up anger genuinely manifested and fuck, he made Gilbert bleed. He closes his eyes and then hears a soft sigh  
“Wait- you’re...staying?” Gilbert asks and Eric looks up at the confusion in his pale eyes. But there is an obvious right answer to this question. It’s not something to be discussed.  
“Um...no?” Eric says and sits up, realises that Gilbert is already holding out his shirt to him.  
“Here” Gilbert smiles cheerily.  
Eric dresses slowly and leaves his tie undone as he pulls on his socks. Ignores how his hands are shaking.  
“You don’t need a lift do you?” Gilbert asks, lying in bed smoking like some low rent prostitute with the attitude of a sated cat.  
Again, there is a right answer.  
“No...” He says, though one would be great. It’s started to snow. Keith had once said the cold brings out the worst in Gilbert.  
Gilbert smiles like that was the right answer.  
“Have good night, Eric” He says. “This was so much fun” 

He doesn’t get up to let him out. 

 

Christmas ends with a double homicide. 

“I’m so sorry about this-” Eric is saying as they turn on the lights in the office, teams of people flooding the hallways as the first case of the new year kicks off with a bang.  
Quite literally.  
Gilbert - dragged into work at 2.45 am - just shakes his head, blinks rapidly.  
“Your cover was ill-”  
“I know” Gilbert yawns. “He called me. It’s fine” he slides off his winter jacket and slips on the lab coat and heads, with a fluidity that’s almost unfair, into the morgue. Eric struggles to keep pace with him.  
“Gas leak in a flat, exploded and killed two people, it was tampered with- Neighbours report seeing a man-”  
“Okay, so it was intentional” Gilbert waves him off and pulls the body close, sliding on gloves like a second skin and just like that, Eric is dismissed.  
He thought the feelings may have eased after they were released. Frankly, it’s only gotten worse.  
They haven’t spoken since they fucked and it hangs heavy over one of them or maybe Gilbert it just exceptionally professional. It’s probably that.  
Maybe it’s just that it’s the early hours of the morning but Gilbert seems cold or he may just be cold - it’s a horribly stormy night. Why Eric feels so nervous he has no idea.  
Everything calms down around four am and Gilbert appears with a preliminary report at his office.  
“Tired?” Eric asks.  
“Yeah” Gilbert rubs his forehead, eyes squeezed shut. “Yeah I am actually”  
“Busy night?” Eric asks but it’s forced, polite. They hold eye contact and Gilbert presses two fingers into the report, placed neatly on his desk as he smiles.  
“I was actually at Keith’s-”  
It’s like acid through his veins. Eric catches his wrist.  
“What is your game here?” Eric snaps and pulls him close. Gilbert goes easily, blinks and looks up.  
“Game? I don’t understand-” He laughs airily, as though Eric is insane.  
“Why did you- What did that night mean?” Eric’s voice feels strained.  
“Mean?” Gilbert repeats. “It didn’t mean anything, Eric. I was just...”  
“Just what?” Eric asks, grip tightening on Gilbert wrist. “Thought I was easy? Thought because-”  
Gilbert looks oddly serene “Yes, actually. I did think that. Sorry if I’ve” Gilbert narrows his eyes, scrutinises Eric closer “Misread you”  
Eric’s jaw drops and he backhands Gilbert just as he hauls him close.  
He catches him off guard when he kisses him. Gilbert tenses from the shock of the slap and Eric ignores how the tight pull on Gilbert’s lab coat means the pen tucked into the pocket cuts awkwardly into his palm. It’s mostly teeth.  
“I’m not your plaything Gilbert” He whispers against those lips, finally not covered in that awful smirk.  
“I can’t believe you just hit me” Gilbert gasps in between breaths.  
Actually neither can Eric. He really hadn’t meant to but his temper had always been short, regardless of how good he thought he could handle it.  
Again, quite how Gilbert ends up under his desk sucking him off is a mystery but it was early in the morning and they were both exhausted. The excitement of being caught had made it better, the shock awake of murder and hypersensitive skin from the cold making the whole experience utterly, utterly surreal and someone perfect.  
Gilbert had bought him coffee that morning.  
It may have been the beginning of the end. 

 

It becomes regularly on and off. Gilbert is surprisingly unsubtle in his attraction. In Fact it takes Eric a moment of getting use to because it’s so uncharacteristic. So sudden.  
“You’re going to spend all your income on buying me expensive coffee” Eric says one morning when Gilbert picks him up and hands him a paper cup with a pattern in the froth. It’s really unnerving how the cold makes Gilbert’s nose flush pink, his smile bright against the dull grey sky. Makes him look happy.  
“Oh well” Gilbert says softly and turns on the radio.  
“And all your petrol on picking me up” Eric mumbles, suddenly feeling very undeserving.  
“If you don’t like it just tell me” Gilbert snorts and does the most illegal U turn down his street on the ice soaked streets. “You need to get your crime under control you know. I’m really sick of all these bodies that are turning up”  
Eric laughs, quiet and pleased. “Yeah, I’ll sort that for you Gilbert” 

Weeks pass and neither of them speak about Keith.  
Months pass and Eric forgets the guilt. 

Almost. 

Except they can’t. Neither of them can and the more they do, the more it’s noticeable. Suddenly they feel like this isn’t a game - at least Eric feels like that - because he’s spending more time at Gilbert’s than he is at his own. He has a fucking toothbrush in the man’s bathroom.  
“Oh it’s fine” Gilbert says when a two am call comes in and Eric has to go to work. “It makes sense, given how early you have to go in sometimes”  
And yeah, that does make sense, the job is demanding. Staying at Gilbert’s - which is closer to the station than his own place - makes sense. Especially considering they are fucking. 

What doesn’t make sense is the mornings that he wakes up with Gilbert’s head on his chest and the clock reads 8.35am and Gilbert groans when he’s woken up but smiles a blissful little half smile and murmurs something about breakfast as he stretches like a tamed lion.  
What doesn’t make sense is the nights they lie awake watching that shitty detective show together while Gilbert finishes reports and asks questions like “If they died at seven pm and you found them at four am then that’s...”and counts it out on his fingers.  
What doesn’t make sense is when Eric - so usually angry at the tone and demeanour of Gilbert at work, so usually snappy when Gilbert looks bored at five pm and asks if he can go home - get’s the man a coffee and puts a hand on the small of his back when he asks if he’s alright.  
What doesn’t make sense is the way Gilbert actively spends time with him. 

And then it clicks. 

Gilbert actually likes him. 

But it wasn’t meant to be like that. This was about Keith. This was always about Keith. When the fuck had it actually become about them? This was a safe way for him to vent his unresolved tension and it was, well, fun? fun for Gilbert? 

He’s in too deep. Much, much to deep. This is unbearable. The bliss that lasts for a few months dissipates with the snow and leaves Eric with a bone deep ache that he can’t place at all but he does know one thing;

 

“We really should stop this”

So that’s how they ended up here. Eric taking an awkward bite of the toast made for him as they break up - christ, no, they were never together - Gilbert stares at him for a moment, almost upset looking, and then takes the call he’d been ignoring. Stands and leaves. 

“Well this is a surprise, You never call me-”  
Eric hears him say, as he goes into the hallway. He knows exactly who’s called and who Gilbert ignored three times. He hears that laugh, the one he hasn’t heard in months, that was the laugh that made him fall this hard to begin with.  
“No, no” Gilbert is saying. “Yeah I have it, I’m sorry, I’ve been wearing it.”  
Eric remembers now, pathetically, a worn out old threadbare jumper Gilbert would wear on colder nights that was so unlike the rest of his wardrobe. So it’s Keith's. Off course it is.  
He feels really sick all of a sudden.  
“Tonight?” Gilbert is saying, voice bright, demeanour changed, no longer just sated and content and suddenly just - Alive. They were meant to do something together tonight him and Gilbert.  
He guesses that’s the difference between him and Keith. It goes for Gilbert too. What’s the point in happiness when you can have whatever concoction Keith creates.  
“Yeah I’ll come round” Gilbert’s voice creates smiles in the soundwaves through the door. “Alright. I’ll see you then”  
He forgot what Gilbert sounded like when he was genuine. He forgot the tone that was made all for Keith. Forgot that it was never used for him.  
Maybe that’s what was missing.  
Gilbert pockets his phone and comes to sit back down beside him. Smiles an utterly fake smile and clasps his coffee in two hands as he leans forward. 

“Sorry, you were saying?” 

So much for strike before struck. So much for getting out while it was safe. Eric was an idiot.  
He spends the night alone, knowledge that Gilbert is at the house of the man Eric treasured. Gilbert who he had for a few blissful moments, all to himself.  
Keith just always manages to have all the aces when he’s not even playing the game. 

 

He can’t blame Keith when he didn’t know. Don’t dwell on anything Keith Flick says or does. 

But the same can’t be said for Gilbert

**Author's Note:**

> Tbh I think I ended up writing way too much of myself into Gilbert...


End file.
